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“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” ~ Arthur Shoepenhauer

This month I will wander into the realm of Belief and Nonbelief. There has been a battle brewing on the internet. I dare not, care not, to name it, because its content is irrelevant. It is the same argument at the root of every war ever waged ~ internal and external. “I am right. You are wrong. And I believe this so fervently, vehemently, that I will deny your very humanity.”

This battle is older than words and is so woven into the fabric of our defenses that we barely notice we are wearing it, warring it, willing it into being. The trouble is that when we stick our heels into the thick mud of our own beliefs, we fail to be curious about the landscape before us. We forget to wonder, to question, to imagine. As Einstein hummed, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Insight, innovation, and clarity arise only from the muck of Not Knowing.

I am not suggesting that there is no truth, only that the perception of truth is relative, relational, and deeply dependent on our perspective. If I could have tea with Arthur Shoepenhauer, I would posit this idea . . . that perhaps truth wanders through an infinity of stages, ever unfurling and hurling itself against the walls of our beliefs, shattering itself, shifting shapes, if only to keep us in intimate contact with the value of the unknown.

And then I would shrug my shoulders, because the truth is, I have no idea.